They have been spotted near Portland during the past month, but so far none have been seen near Warrnambool.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment's Mandy Watson says this year is likely to be the low point of a three-year cycle of whale migration.

"The only change to that would be given that we had such an unusual last year, that whether or not something has tipped the balance a little bit more and whether some more whales might start coming back," she said.

"But if you go on the normal pattern that we see, if you look at 2007 which was a very quiet year, you might expect a quiet year again."

Ms Watson says the whales seem to be spending increasing amounts of time in the water's off Portland.

"What I think is that Portland was traditionally used by the species and that as the population grows we'll see more and more of the sightings at places like Portland and Port Fairy which all seem to be important areas," he said.